9 Church Street

The Department's description

Exterior description and setting

A two-storey three-bay Victorian mid-terrace office, built c.1850 and located to the north side of Church Street in Banbridge town centre. Rectangular on plan with two-storey gabled return to rear.

Pitched natural slate roof with terracotta ridge tiles and rendered chimneystack having tall terracotta pots. Cast-iron half-round rainwater goods. Walling is painted smooth render on a smooth rendered plinth. Windows are 1/1 timber sliding sash with projecting masonry sills to first floor; enlarged multi-paned timber window to ground floor.

The principal elevation faces south-west; three unevenly spaced windows to first floor. Enlarged timber window to ground floor right; half-glazed replacement timber door with square-headed overlight to left of centre and raised-and-fielded four-panelled timber door with square-headed overlight to left.

The north-west elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB17/04/010G).

The north-east elevation has a window to first floor right and two narrow timber-casement windows to ground floor right; abutted at left by a two-storey gabled return with casement window to each floor; left cheek not viewed; right cheek comprises modern flush door to ground and first floor right and is abutted by masonry steps rising from left to right to access first floor. All windows to rear are protected by steel security bars.

The south-east elevation is abutted by adjoining building (HB17/04/010E).

Setting:

Street-fronted and forming part of an early-nineteenth century terrace opposite Seapatrick Parish Church (HB17/04/001). To rear is a tarmacadamed car park shared with number 10, accessed via modern metal gates to northwest.

Roof: Natural slate
Walling: Render
Windows: Timber
RWG: Cast-iron

Historical information

The building is a former dwelling built c.1850 on the site of an earlier building. The house was largely destroyed in the 1980s and in its present, much-altered form, serves as offices for a solicitor’s practice.

The Church Street terrace, of which the current building forms a part, dates from between c.1800 and c.1865 but primary evidence suggests that the terrace was built up around a core of simpler buildings dating from the earliest days of the establishment of the town. As Banbridge has grown, the terrace was rebuilt and improved, reflecting the boom in the town’s fortunes brought by the growth of a worldwide linen trade.

Early maps of Banbridge are often highly stylised and open to a degree of interpretation but a 1703 map of the ‘Bann Crossing’ shows a single-storey three-bay dwelling in the vicinity of the current terrace which may well have been the first building on the site. A new bridge was erected across the Bann in 1712 and in subsequent years the town began to grow as a centre of the linen industry, holding the largest fairs for linen cloth in the County of Down by 1744. By this time the town was the property of Wills Hill, Earl of Hillsborough who laid out the streets and encouraged people to build by granting sections of land at nominal rents in perpetuity added to which were ‘town parks’ or small farms in the neighbourhood of the town. (Linn; Magennis) Maps of 1755 and 1771 show buildings on the site as does the first edition OS map of 1833 but there are gaps in the terrace at this stage and valuation records show that some rebuilding/remodelling of the terrace took place before the second edition in 1860. The current house is shown as rectangular on plan with a yard and garden to the rear.

The house is listed in the Townland Valuation of 1828-40 as the home of Samuel McGill but is exempted, not reaching the threshold for inclusion in the fieldbook. By the time of Griffith’s Valuation there has been a rebuild/remodel and the house is now a two-storey structure valued at £10.5s. There are two outbuildings one of which is thatched and the occupier is Thomas Preston. Thomas Preston was a tailor and died in 1872 (Belfast Newsletter; Street Directory 1856). Preston’s widow Sarah took over the house in 1873 and was still resident at the time of the 1901 census when she was a 70-year-old widow living on dividends. The house is a second-class dwelling with 5 rooms. In 1911 the occupier is Richard Hamilton Bennett, a 33-year-old bookkeeper who lives with his County Cork wife and his two young daughters. Subsequent occupiers were Edward S Hill (1913), Oliver B Spokes (1920) and George Russell (1923). At the time of the First General Revaluation the tenant was George Russell who leased the house, offices and garden from the Marquess of Downshire. The house was revalued at £14.10s. The accommodation comprised four bedrooms, a ‘narrow’ lobby, two receptions, a kitchen, scullery and bathroom with bath, lavatory and WC, hot and cold water. The lease was for 200 years from 1905. A plan and dimensions are given for the house which had a return, wash house and store to the rear. A right of way is shown from the neighbouring house into the yard at the rear. Joseph S Agnew took over the house in 1956 but in the 1980s the house lost its roof and internal features, probably as the result of a fire. The house has subsequently been rebuilt and the front facade has been considerably altered, with new window and door openings to both floors. The former house is now in use as a solicitor’s office.

References:

Primary Sources

1. PRONI OS/6/3/27/1 First Edition OS Map 1833
2. PRONI OS/6/3/27/2 Second Edition OS map 1860
3. PRONI OS/6/3/27/3 Third Edition OS Map (c1900)
4. PRONI OS/6/3/27/4 Fourth Edition OS Map 1903-18
5. PRONI VAL /1/B/348A Townland Valuation (1828-40)
6. PRONI VAL/2/B/3/64C Griffith’s Valuation (1856-64)
7. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/6A-H Annual Revisions (1864-1929)
8. PRONI VAL/12/B/16/7A-C Annual Revisions (1899-1930)
9. PRONI VAL/3/C/4/4 First General Revaluation (1936-57)
10. PRONI VAL/3/D/4/2/A/5 First General Revaluation (1933-57)
11. PRONI D695/M/1 Banbridge 1703
12. PRONI D695/M/2 County Down 1755
13. PRONI D671/M/1/7 Banbridge 1771
14. Belfast Newsletter 27th October 1862
15. Belfast Newsletter 27th January 1872
16. Pigot & Co Directory 1824
17. Belfast Directory 1841/2
18. Belfast and Province of Ulster Directory 1856
19. Post Office Directory 1843

Secondary Sources

1. Linn, Captain R “A History of Banbridge” (edited by W S Kerr) Banbridge Chronicle Press, 1935
2. Magennis, P “Banbridge, An Illustrated History and Companion” Donaghadee, Cottage Publications, 1996
3. Rankin, K “The Linen Houses of the Bann Valley, The story of their families” Belfast, Ulster Historical Foundation, 2007
4. Young, A F and Quail, D “Old Banbridge” Stenlake Publishing, 2002

Criteria for listing: architectural interest

Not listed

Criteria for listing: historic interest

Not listed

Evaluation

An altered two-storey three-bay Victorian mid-terrace office, built c.1850. Originally with a symmetrical frontage, the facade has been altered to accommodate a modern office but it has retained something of its former character. However, the proportions have been altered and the interior fully refurbished. These extensive alterations and renovations have seriously compromised its historic interest. Although it is located in a terrace here, it was not built as part of it. The building is of a common type and not among the best examples.

General comments

Previously HB17/04/010